Bristol City Academy have secured a link with Parry & Jones Soccer School (PJSS), which has been set up by former professional footballers Paul Parry and Darren Jones.

The development programme is aiming to find the new generation of talent in South Wales.

Both Parry and Jones started out their youth careers with Bristol City, with Parry winning 12 caps for Wales. The pair got to know each other at Shrewsbury Town and set up PJSS in October and have recruited around 100 children already.

Paul Parry in action for Wales

Parry told the South Wales Argus : “Obviously Bristol City have seen the benefit of what we’re doing and I think they’ve wanted somewhere over here for some time.

“They’ve been waiting for the right people to take it and they found out about us.

“We jumped at it because it will be good for us and for the coaches to go over there and learn from their coaches and see how they do things in their academy.

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“Our end goal is to send people over to them and for them to come and take people from us because we are a development centre.”

Parry and Jones are in the process of financing the conversion of a warehouse in Newport into a new indoor sports centre with two 3G pitches, as well as a café and conference rooms. With the use of these new facilities, the pair are looking to bridge the gap between grassroots and academy football.

Ashton Gate

Jones explained: “We went over to the Bristol City academy to watch them train and the standard is frightening.

“For grassroots players to get anywhere near that there needs to be somewhere in the middle.

“It’s a pathway and if we can them up towards that standard then the academy is more likely to take children from us than from a grassroots club.”